Southeast : TRANSIT TINKERING

Long Beach transit officials say they simply wanted to shorten the wait for customers who ride one of the city’s busiest bus routes. They never guessed elderly and disabled customers who use a different route would raise such a fuss.

So officials of the city’s bus service this week scrapped their plan to cut short a bus line that runs from Long Beach’s east end to a Blue Line station on the city’s west side.

Transit officials acknowledged the concerns of scores of elderly and disabled riders who spoke against the route change at an October hearing, transit assistant general manager Guy Heston said. Riders had complained that cutting the line would pose a new inconvenience by requiring them to transfer buses to reach some destinations.

But Heston said the change also would have provided more buses for service along 7th Street, one of the system’s busiest routes. It carries an average of 43 riders every hour, nearly double the number of hourly riders on the route that winds its way west to the Wardlow Blue Line Station, he said.

“The issue for us is balancing our budget,” Heston said, adding that the transit system is expecting cuts in federal funding. “We only have so many service hours that are available to our community.”